Labor Day Weekend

Over Labor Day Weekend, I was planning on spending just Friday canning tomatoes but things changed and I spend the entire weekend preserving food. I started by collecting the last of my 2009 whole canned tomatoes and reprocessing them into 6 quarts of tomato juice. Then I took 10 quarts from the 2010 whole canned tomatoes, made vegetable juice from them for a total of 8 quarts. On Saturday at the Dodgeville Farmer’s Market I brought large chili pepper for a Canned Tomato Salsa recipe I found on Simply Recipes web site. The recipe says it makes about 5 pints but I got 13 ½-pint jars of canned salsa. The previous weekend I tried Simply Recipes Tomatillo Salsa Verde and it was great. I used my new pressure cooker to can this salsa.

Once I finished with the juice and salsa, I started roasting tomatoes in the broiler, removing the skins and placing them in quarts jars to can. I roasted both paste and regular tomatoes and ended up with 7 quarts of each type. I still had some tomatoes left some I roasted them up and made “Hot and Spicy Chili Sauce” to use on hamburgers and sausages. This gave me 15 ½-pint of chili for my pantry. Then I pulled the last of the 2009 strawberry and rhubarb from my freezer and made jam for a total 3 pints of strawberry and 12 pints of strawberry rhubarb jam.

In between all the canning I did find sometime on Labor Day to wash the basement floor and apply hydraulic cement on possible leaks in the floor. Next Monday I can start painting that section of the floor.

I still want to roast another 5 quarts each of the paste and regular tomatoes before I call it an end to the canning season.  I am still picking bean, broccoli, zucchini, eggplant, and peppers and freezing them.  My winter squashes are dying off and soon will be ready storage in my basement pantry.  The gardening season may last until the end of the month if I am lucky and the weather remains mild.

Slow Going but I am still progressing forward.

We did not get the forecasted rain until early Saturday morning so I spent Friday evening putting the first coat on the remaining balusters and called it a night. We had intermittence rain over the weekend so I needed to change my plans on working on the outside of the house. Saturday morning in between going to Mineral Point’s Farmer Market and doing laundry, I prepared the basement floor for painting. I first vacuumed the floor and then washed it. It took many buckets of clean water to clean a 15 x 8 square foot area. The rain did help me find where water was coming in the floor’s south corner. I applied hydraulic cement over the leak. I now need to wait a week for the cement to cure before I can start painting the floor.


Later on Saturday I removed the glass panes from the storm window on the wall I am stripping and also stripped it of paint. The storm window’s lower joints needed to be glued back together. The bottom section of the window has some rot in it and some time this week I will be applying wood harder to those areas. After I fix that area and fill in some other areas with wood filler, I can prime it and reglaze the glass panes before painting it with the accent color “Hodley Red”.

Sunday was again spent canning and freezing vegetables. I canning another 4 quarts of Amish Dill Pickles and preserved my first ten 12-oz jars of Dilly Bean this year. I did find time to make an eggplant and zucchini casserole and roast cherry tomatoes for a pasta salad. I love the “Roasted Cherry tomatoes and Garlic Pasta Salad”. It is a great way to use all those cherry tomatoes up, I found this recipe in Martha Stewart Magazine last year believe it was in the October issue. Look it up because it is a keeper.

Updated 8/23/2011: The recipe I wrote about is called "Rigatoni with Roasted Tomatoes" from Martha Stewart halloween 2009 special issue, p. 114.  I looked for it on the her web site but it must not be posted anymore. 

The House Projects

This weekend I spend most of my time putting up vegetables from the garden. I cut the two “Cheddar” cauliflower heads and filled two Ziploc gallon bags for blanching. I spent Saturday morning freezing the beans, cauliflower and broccoli. I also prepared beet greens for freezing and cooked the beets. I save some beets for eating this week but the rest of the beets were pickled and canned for a total of 7 half-pint jars. Sunday morning I made 7 pints of canned dill pickles.

After getting that job done I found time to put the first coat of paint on the northeast corner of the basement. Putting the first coat on the wall takes the longest since I needed to painting over all the spray-foam and foam-board insulation between the cement wall and first floor. The next three coats should be a lot easier since I one coat usually covers the foam.

The rest of the Sunday I spent sowing “Detroit Red” &“Detroit Golden” beets and “Chantenay” & “Baby Nantes” carrot. I used boiling hot water from the food processing to kill weeds in the stone paths. I used some of leftover flowers from Farmer’s Market to fill in holes in the garden and composted the rest.

I also had the back deck on my “TO DO” list. I have a small area on the left stair riser left to sand. One week ago the heat wave broke and I spent that Monday home working on the deck. My upholstery teacher lent me her Black and Decker Mouse sander. The sander has attachments which allow you reach in the tight areas. I got all the deck done in 8 hours last Monday with only small area left to hand sand. The weather is going do cool down after Tuesday so I might take more time off to finish it.

Area that needs to be hand sanded.

Wisconsin State Capital



The State Capital seen from Olbrich Park on Lake Monona.  Frank Wright's Monona Terrace is the large white building sitting on the lake.

 The State Capital building is the center for social and governmental functions in the City of Madison.  Here is where the all Wisconsin governmental workers have been protesting over the last months.  We had another rally here last Saturday.  The Capital building is not just all business either every Saturday from April 16 to Nov 5 the Dane County Farmer's Market on the Square is held.  The market is well attended; I have not been to the market since I moved out of Madison but I use try to get there by 8 AM so I missed the crowds.  It is the place to be if you want to be seen and meet friends. 

Another big summer social event is Concerts on the Square, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra hold 6 concerts on Kings Street corner from June 29 to August 3 at 7 PM.  The concert is free and everyone bring a blanket to lay on the grass along with a picnic basket and listens to the music.  The 4th of July week concert is always a fun one to attend.

The reason why Arthur and I came to the Capital last Tuesday was my brother wanted to take some picture of it so he could try his hand at painting it.  We walked all around the outside of the Capital and enjoyed the wonderful sunny day and took pictures.

This time of year the Capital grounds planted with all types of bulbs and all the plants were in bloom.  When the bloom are finished; the ground crews remove the bulbs and give them to the public.  I was hoping to put a picture of the status Forward which sits on top of the dome but must have transferred that picture to the wrong flash drive.

When Art and I finish touring the outside we walked over to the roof top garden of Monona Terrace before going to lunch at a pub on the square.  I was hoping that Art would like to go on a free Capital tour but he declined.  I have walked through and explored inside the Capital but never went on an official tour.  When we finished at the Capital we drove to Governor Nelson State Park on the north side of Lake Menoda.  That is for the next blog.